1. Field of the Invention
The present invention mainly relates to a connector connected to a portable electrical apparatus such as a cellular phone and a digital camera and particularly to a connector having a floating mechanism, the connector being freely movable in a predetermined range when connected to the portable electrical apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a state in which a portable electrical apparatus 30 is connected to a connector 41 having a floating structure. The connector 41 is connected to the base 46 by putting elastic rings 44 which are deformable rubber-like elastic bodies into through holes 43 in a floating deck 42 integrally provided to a connector main body 40 and provided to a lower portion of the main body 40 and inserting setscrews 45 inserted into the elastic rings 44. The connector 41 of this structure is fixed to the base 46 through the structure which is movable by deforming the elastic rings 44. The connector having the floating structure is connected to a printed circuit board 48 through a flexible board 47. The flexible board 47 connects the connector 41 to the printed circuit board 48 in a state in which the connector 41 is movable. In order to connect the flexible board 47, a circuit board 49 is fixed to a lower end of the connector 41 by soldering. To this circuit board, the flexible board is connected.
The connector shown in FIG. 1 is characterized in that it can reliably be connected to a coupling portion of the portable electrical apparatus to reduce a poor connection. This is because the connector moves to such a position as to reliably be connected to the coupling portion of the portable electrical apparatus. Especially in the structure shown in the drawing, in which the portable electrical apparatus is set by being placed in a concave portion formed in a case or on a mounting portion on the case and is connected to the portable electrical apparatus, relative positions of the portable electrical apparatus and the connector may be displaced from each other in some cases. If the relative positions of them are displaced from each other, the coupling portion of the portable electrical apparatus cannot be inserted into an accurate position of the connector. As a result, it is difficult to reliably connect all contacts of the connector and the coupling portion without contact failure. Particularly in a structure in which the connector connects not only a power source but also many communication channels, it is difficult to reliably connect all contacts. With the connector having the floating structure, this drawback can be overcome by moving the relative positions of the connector and the coupling portion of the portable electrical apparatus to optimum positions.
As described above, there has been developed the connector which can be coupled to the base through the floating structure (see a gazette of Japanese Patent Publication Laid-open No. 8-31510).